


A Woman's Job

by jadelennox



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Character Death Fix, Everybody Lives, F/M, Female Character of Color, Male Character of Color, canon appropriate gore, misogynist language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Letty." The gravel in the voice made it almost impossible to recognize Gisele. "Tell me."</p><p>"It's a gateway," said Letty. "I know where it goes. I've been there before."</p><p>"<em>Tell me,</em>" Gisele grated out. The words sounded like they were dragged from her throat.</p><p>"Han's alive."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midnightjuly (roadmarks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadmarks/gifts).



> Additional warnings for current affairs below.

When Gisele fell to her death, she laughed.

Well, first she shot the asshole who was trying to kill Han. But once she'd given Han the breathing space he needed to take care of himself, and once she realized there was nothing to catch herself on, no way of stopping the fall, she gave in to the adrenaline. It couldn't have been more than a second, maybe two, but it felt like she was flying: blood pumping from the chase, wind whipping through her hair. The pain of hitting the concrete -- her flesh pulping, her bones crushed -- was excruciating, but the fall was _amazing_.

It was a couple of days before she was healed enough to move. When she finally staggered to her feet, picking disgustedly at the blood crusted remains of her tank top, she realized why no one had come looking for her body. The runway ran along a bluff, and she'd fallen down a ravine, into a brook. She must have been washed downstream. It took a while to even find the way back to the airstrip, yellow police tape fluttering far above her.

 _Crap._ Han and Dom and the crew must have assumed she was dead. _What's the quickest way out of the country_ , she wondered. She'd need to avoid the GEOs and NATO forces sweeping the area. And she'd definitely need to get some clothes; she was covered in blood and grime. She'd lost her gun somewhere, too.

She cracked her knuckles. It'd been years since she'd needed to escape alone from hostile territory, but she hadn't forgotten the thrill. She wondered if Shai was still stationed in Lisbon, and if he could get her a passport.


	2. Chapter 2

Dom slouched back in his seat, rolling an empty Corona bottle over his knuckles. He gazed through the light evening crowd toward the bar, where Letty and Mia were chatting as they returned with the next round.

"Keep smiling like that, and everyone will think you're a big softy," said Mia, as she slid another bottle across the table. Dom's eyes cut toward Letty, sitting back down with her own bottle. He didn't know what his face looked like, but it didn't feel like his smile was getting any smaller.

"Nah," said Letty. "Everybody already knows he's a big marshmallow."

"That's me," he said, agreeable. "Uncle Marshmallow."

Letty frowned at Mia . "Do we need to get you home anytime soon?"

"Brian said he needed some quality Jack-and-Daddy time. Which I'm pretty sure means setting up the Hot Wheels track all over the dining room floor."

"Pfft. Track races." Dom pointed his beer bottle at Mia. "Jack's got too much finesse for track races."

Letty kicked his ankle gently. "Give the kid a break," she said. "He's only two. He can graduate to RC cars when he's three or four." Dom trapped her foot between his own legs and tugged it toward him.

"Yep," said Mia. "That facial expression exactly, Uncle Marshmallow." She grinned at him, wide and happy. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed as she looked over his shoulder toward the street.

"Mia?" Dom twisted to look behind him. He couldn't sense any danger, but it wasn't like the last few years had been _calm_.

"Holy fuck," said Letty, looking in the same direction. "Is that ...?"'

" _Gisele_?"

Gisele Harabo walked up to their table, snagged an empty chair, and sat. She quirked her lips but said nothing.

Dom looked back and forth between Gisele and Letty, tapping his fingertips over the spot on his chest where a necklace once hung. "Not that I'm complaining, but does anyone get the sense that heaven has a revolving door?" 

Mia grasped Gisele's hands. Her fingers pressed white patches into the olive skin of Gisele's wrists. "Are you all right? What happened? Was it the same thing as -- " She broke off, glancing at Letty.

"I doubt it," said Letty, as Gisele shook her head.

"It's complicated." She crossed her legs. "Where's Han?"

"In Tokyo." Mia's eyes were huge and sad. "You don't know how crushed he was when we thought you were dead. Oh, Gisele, he'll be so happy--!"

"You can't go," Dom reminded her. Ugh, he wasn't looking forward to telling Brian they were travelling without him, but they all agreed Jack needed to be better protected after Shaw. At least this one was just a pleasure trip, or Brian would probably insist.

"Go?" Gisele arched a brow. "where are you planning on going?"

"To Tokyo with you, of course. How often do we get to see family come back from the dead?"

"You'd think not all the time," murmured Letty.

"So, what, you're tagging along because just wanna see his face?"

Mia smirked. "The crew will go along to see his face. You can go to see his mmmrmph!" Her last words were muffled by Dom's hand over her mouth.

Gisele groaned. "I'm dragging all of you along, aren't I?"

Letty leaned forward, peering narrow-eyed at Gisele's face: her eyes, ears, the shape of her cheekbones. "Huh," she said. "How long have you been a werewolf?"


	3. Chapter 3

Dom was snuggled against Letty in the cabin of Roman's ridiculous private plane, but he couldn't stop looking at Gisele. Letty nudged him.

"Stop staring," she hissed.

"But seriously," Dom said. "Seriously. A werewolf? How are you a werewolf?"

"Don't be racist, man," called Tej, from across the cabin. Gisele, leaning back in her chair with closed eyes, huffed a quiet laugh.

Letty squeezed Dom's knee. "Don't worry so much," she said. "That's one more person who ain't dead. Isn't that what's important?"

"Of course that's what's important." _But seriously. A werewolf._ "Just, surprise is kinda an understatement, here."

"Yeah, I get that."

He leaned toward her, bumping her shoulder with his own. "And how did you know?" he asked Letty, not for the first time.

"I can't explain it," she told him again. "I don't ... I don't exactly remember. I just know."

Suki pushed away from the bar, passing a highball glass to Tej and keeping one for herself. "It's a long flight to Tokyo." She leaned over the back of Gisele's seat. "Gonna show us any cool werewolf tricks?"

Gisele answered without opening her eyes. "You mean like chewing through your rib cage to eat your heart? That kind of trick?"

"Hey, it was a reasonable question."

"Uh-huh."

Tej wrapped his arms around Suki's waist and dropped down onto a lounger, pulling her onto his lap. "Be cool, G," he said. "We got the crew together to help you find your man, didn't we? Suki's just giving you a hard time."

Gisele opened her eyes and bared her teeth at Suki. "Gonna show us all around Tokyo? Show us the sights?" Suki shrieked and lunged toward Gisele, while Tej, laughing, held her back.

"That 'don't be racist' goes for you, too, G," he said. "Oof!" He doubled over slightly around the elbow Suki jabbed into his gut, but as he let go, she settled back into the lounger with him.

Letty cocked her head quizzically at Dom. "Suki's from Long Island," he murmured. "Gisele's just giving her shit same as Suki's dishing it out herself. Family."

"Family," she said. "Even though you made Brian and Mia stay on the island with Jack."

"Family." He laced his fingers through hers. "Crew is family. Jack just needs his parents out of danger right now."

She nodded, still with that slightly bemused expression on her face. Dom's heart broke a little, like it did whenever he thought about her time with Shaw.

"Yo, what the fuck?" Roman said, leaning out of the bedroom door. "Everything okay out here?"

"Wolf-girl can't help it," said Suki, gesturing with her now empty glass. "Don't be too hard on her."

Gisele laughed as she leaned back in her seat. "Wake me when we get to Tokyo," she said, closing her eyes once more.

Dom watched her pretend to sleep. She seemed calm, but to anyone who knew her it was obvious she was almost vibrating with anticipation. She wouldn't really relax until they got to Tokyo and she saw Han again. Hell, Dom couldn't wait to see Han again. The pardons were great, and obviously getting Letty back was the most important thing, but Dom couldn't be entirely happy with a hole in his crew. With Gisele back from the dead ( _a fucking werewolf? really?_ ), all they needed was Han back for Dom to feel like his family was whole again.


	4. Chapter 4

They stood together in horrified silence and watched Han's car burn.

Or, well, most of them stood in silence. Gisele was making a horrific, inhuman noise in Tej's arms and Suki was cursing repetitively, as if a constant mantra of _what the fuck what the motherfucking fuck_ would tell them anything. But Dom himself just stared, his eyes stinging from more than just smoke. Nothing here made any sense: not this weird organized crime bullshit they'd been chasing around Tokyo for two days while they hunted for Han; not the petty high school crap Han seemed to have gotten involved in; not how Han of all people could manage to crash that badly; and certainly not how the car had gone up in such a fireball. Dom may not know much but he knew cars, and Han's just hadn't sustained the kind of damage that would cause that kind of explosion.

Letty stepped forward, backlit by the hellish flames. Dom reached for her but she slipped away from his hand. "I've seen this before," she said, almost inaudible under the crackling flames, the shouts from the crowd, and Gisele's keening.

"A crash?" Roman sounded dubious, and Dom didn't blame him. Even with the amnesia, Letty clearly remembered, well, cars.

"No." She took another step toward the burning car. "This ... this kind of fire. I've seen this fire before."

"Letty," Dom said, but stopped as she held up her hand, palm out.

"Look at it," said Letty. "Does that look like normal fire to you?"

"Babe," Dom said.

"Jesus," Suki breathed. "What the hell is that thing?"

Dom squinted at the flames. It just looked like any other burning car. Well. Like any other burning car that was the grave of someone else he couldn't bear to lose.

"Look," said Letty, again. "Just _look_ at it."

He looked at the others. Suki was staring at the fire, nightmare reflections flickering over her wide eyes. Roman was peering narrowly at the accident, as if he, too, were starting to see something confusing. Tej had his arms wrapped around Gisele, and was still focused on her. Gisele, however, had stopped wailing. She, too, was looking into the flames. Dom turned back to the fire, trying to see what they did. If the others saw something as well, then it wasn't just Letty cracking up with the strain.

It just looked like fire. Maybe there were some weird optical illusion effects, maybe the wreckage had formed strangely symmetrical arcs around the blaze, but it was just fire.

Okay, he had to admit the illusion was pretty solid. The towers of wreckage were so high they looked like an enormous strangely spiked oval frame, and the fire was mostly contained inside, like a copper hubcap. Dom could almost believe he was looking through a window to someplace else, someplace orange and twisted and burning and rocky. He knew it was just an illusion wrought by stress and grief and confusion, but it did look strange.

And then Letty took two steps forward, three, four, before breaking into a jog, leaping into the fiery disk, and vanishing into thin air.

Dom's perceptions took on a crystal-clear quality. Everything was sharp, focused, even as time seemed to slow. Tej and Gisele, hunched together, wreathed in shadow. Suki, her hands over her mouth, still cursing, eyes wide. Roman, yelling Letty's name, like it would work, like it had ever worked. And Dom himself, running toward the place where Letty had vanished.

Before he reached the car -- though not before he felt the searing pain of blast furnace heat trying to force him back as if it were a living thing -- there was a shimmering wrinkle in the air, a stretch like a soap bubble, and then there was Letty, tumbling out of the flames. She stumbled into Dom's arms, and he grabbed her, squeezed her biceps, dragged her to safety. 

Dom pressed kisses to her mouth, her smoke-scented hair, her eyelids. He felt like he couldn't get enough oxygen, but instead of trying to breathe, he just kept trying to absorb Letty through his lips, through the press of his fingers against her arms. _Never again._

"Letty." The gravel in the voice made it almost impossible to recognize Gisele. "Tell me."

"It's a gateway," said Letty. "I know where it goes. I've been there before."

" _Tell me,_ " Gisele grated out. The words sounded like they were dragged from her throat.

"Han's alive."


	5. Chapter 5

Gisele was strung taut, like a wire bound to snap at any moment. It was Dom who broke the tense silence. "What are we waiting for? Let's go get him."

Letty looked away. "It's not that simple. It's dangerous in there, okay? We probably won't all make it out alive."

"Whatever, man," said Roman. "Werewolves, magical portal to a fire dimension, all the same damn thing."

Tej punched him in the arm. "Idiot. Werewolves are furry monsters who can rip out your throat and who are disguised as hot weapons experts. Magical portal to a fire dimension is that fuck-ass-terrifying thing over there. Get your fucking eyes checked."

"It was a figure of speech, you asshole!"

"Maybe you shouldn't try playing with grown-up toys like words, bro."

Suki walked between them while they hissed at each other over her head. "I guess we're doing this," she said to Letty.

"That's what I _said,_ " called Roman. 

Dom was so proud of these people he could barely speak.

He stepped forward and gently took Gisele's forearm. "This ain't nothing," he said. "Let's go get Han." At his touch, Gisele stood impossibly taller, cold and terrifying.

"You follow my lead in there, all of you," said Letty. "Nothing works the way you think it will, and almost everything you meet is trying to kill you." She turned and started walking back toward the terrifying gateway. Gisele followed without pause, and the others trailed behind.

First Letty, then Gisele vanished as they walked through the arch. When he stood before the blasting flames, Dom -- who had driven a car onto an airplane, who had stepped in front of bullets, who had ridden on top of racing trucks -- felt everything inside him clench up at the idea of willingly stepping through that gateway. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so close to pissing himself in terror.

"Shit, man,"said Tej, coming up behind him. Dom agreed with the sentiment.

"You first, bro," said Roman. 

Tej threw his arm around Roman's shoulders. "Nah, man, I insist."

"Ladies first, though. Ow!"

Suki rubbed her fist, which she'd just slammed into Roman's shoulder. "Fuck you and your sexist bullshit, motherfucker."

Just like that, Dom's fears settled. Tej and Roman and Suki were bickering over stupid shit just like always. He took a deep breath, then another, and stepped into the fire.

* * *

It was the sky he noticed first. At first it looked like a picture of space, a distant star field with more stars than you ever saw in the city, with red and orange dust clouds shimmering front of it. But then the smell hit, and the crashing lightning, and he knew he wasn't looking at galaxies and nebulae, but at burning clouds of impossibly flying fire and smoke, poisonous gas and the air itself burning. Pillars of smoke rose of the distance from ... volcanoes? man-made buildings meant to look like volcanoes?

He looked down -- to see Letty and Gisele rifling through the pockets of corpses at his feet. "Fuck!" The dead guys were dressed up like Knights of Columbus on parade, only more hard-core, with swords and helmets and shit, was that chain mail? 

"Heads up." Dom looked up just in time to catch the dagger Letty tossed at him. "You'll need some kind of weapon. I only hope some of the armor will fit you."

Dom stared dumbly at the dagger. There were weird ochre stains on the blade he thought would have looked like blood if the color weren't so wrong. Behind him, he heard the others come through the gate as well. 

"Jesus Goddamned Christ," said Roman.

Gisele and Letty continued to rifle through the belongings of the dead men and dead ... _things_ , occasionally making noises of satisfaction as they found some weapon or tool they found useful.

"Uh, Letty?" Tej stepped forward. "What the hell are you doing?"

"The guardsmen are already dead. It's not like they're using any of this," said Letty. She held a metal shirt -- chainmail, Dom guessed -- in front of Roman, comparing its size to Roman's own. "Try this on." She dropped it into his arms and he whuffed at the weight.

"There's blood on this!"

"So wipe it off, you pussy. Or don't. The important thing is to keep _your_ blood inside your own body, and armor's a damn good way to do that." She turned to Gisele, who was bending and stringing a bow, giving it a few test pulls. "You can shoot?" Letty sounded surprised.

"Got an apple I can shoot off your head?" Gisele had carefully wiped her bloodied hands on one of the Knights of Columbus tunics before drawing the bow, but there were streaks on her pants, her arms, even her face. Dom wondered if the whole werewolf deal meant you got used to fucked-up shit like this.

Before long Gisele and Letty had searched all the human corpses. Letty moved on to the dead monsters: nasty pale creatures with furred legs and outthrust jaws of sharp, misshapen teeth. She patted down their leathery, clawed bodies and looked behind their huge pointed ears, but found nothing. At one point she peeled a small piece of dry skin from one of the creatures, glared at it, then folded it and stuck it in her pocket. "Fucking scamps," she muttered, standing up and stretching.

They were all wearing a mishmash of armor by then: leather helmets, chain shirts, breastplates, gauntlets. Letty had shoved daggers and swords and axes into their hands. When Tej protested -- "I'm not fucking King Arthur, man!" -- Letty'd just said "pretend it's a tire iron." Only Letty herself, tiny as she was, had found no armor she could conceivably wear.

"What about you?" If it was all that dangerous, Dom didn't know how Letty was going to stay safe.

"Unlike the rest of you jokers, I know how to use these," she said, sheathing a saber on a scavenged sword belt and affectionately patting the bow slung over one shoulder. She'd slipped a few knives and clay bottles into pockets and up sleeves, until she bristled like a miniature, bloodstained porcupine. "Come on. We'll have company soon."

Gisele finished tying up her hair and fastened a leather helmet onto her head. She stood fluidly, looking deadly. "Where to?"

Letty frowned at the marks on the ground outside the immediate circle where the Knights of Columbus had clearly got into a fight with the creatures. She straightened and examined the markings on a nearby pillar. "Shit, shit, _shit_."

 _That's not good._ "What's wrong?"

"I know this gate; it's a bad one."

"I ain't scared," said Roman.

"Then you're a fucking idiot. The Sigillum Sanguis is protected -- it's like the ground moves faster the closer you get to the exit. The only way to get out is to go really fast."

Tej coughed. "Going really fast is what we do, baby."

Roman looked behind them at the arch they'd come through. "Let's go back and get the cars."

"Wouldn't work here." Letty grimaced. "Even if we could get back that way, which we can't; the only way out is through the Sigilium Sanguis. Tej, I'll need you. We're going to have to build our own cars."

Dom cracked his knuckles, something settling in him for the first time since he'd seen Han drift down the street. Building a car he understood.

They set off down a path, following Letty. Gisele took up the rear with an arrow nocked to her bow. "Stay on the path," Letty called. "There's sometimes lava pools in the wild parts. You lose a foot there's not much I can do about it. And don't touch the plants."

Suki, gripping a mace with white knuckles, asked, "Why? They bite?"

"Yes," said Letty. 

That did it for the peanut gallery. Nobody else had any wiseass questions.

The terrain was blasted, cracked rock, with twisted forms jutting out of it. With the flame-filled sky Dom thought he could almost imagine it was the Sonoran Desert during wildfire season. If he ignored the fact that there were no saguaro, no piñon, no grasses. Also the desert didn't usually have pools of lava -- look, there was one, just to the right off the path. He shifted uncomfortably in his heavy breastplate. "Where are we going?"

"I know a guy," said Letty, not breaking stride. "Lives in the Nether Tunnels, collects stuff. Might have what we need."

 _How do you know this guy?_ Dom didn't ask. _When were you here before?_

Letty didn't volunteer any answers.

* * *

By the time they reached the Nether Tunnels -- Suki snickered every time Letty said it, until Gisele whacked her with the flat of a claymore to shut her up -- they'd been waylaid by the creatures four times. Letty called them scamps; Dom called them unpleasant. He was sticky with their ochre blood, scorched from the burning attack they did, and nauseated by the bulging pocket of strips of leathery hide Letty was collecting.

The dank, claustrophobic caves were a relief after the lightning and lava pits of the surface, even if the attacks from scamps and weird dinosaur animals Letty called _clannfear_ continued. They were all tired enough by now that Tej, Roman, and Suki had quit their constant bickering. Dom just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other – fuck, he hadn't even missed his ride so much in _prison_ \-- while he felt every drop of moisture sweat out of his body.

"Ware," called Gisele. Dom ducked, the habit drilled into him by bloody repetition, while she shot an arrow over their heads and blasted the clannfear lurking in a side tunnel. Letty lunged and took it out with two quick strikes, then hacked off its claws and added them to a gory string tied to her belt.

 _I'm in love with that woman,_ Dom thought, and honestly, he couldn't decide if he was leaning more towards disgust or self-satisfied pride. Probably both.

"Through here," said Letty, sharply, ducking into a side tunnel over another damned pool of lava. The door she stood in front of was marked with the strange sigil he'd seen around this place. For the first time, Letty didn't just force her way through the door. Instead she knocked firmly, a series of echoing _rat-a-tat-tats_ that made Dom look around nervously for listening predators.

The door swung open. Dom's cave-blinded eyes couldn't see anything but a huge figure backlit by a roaring fire. "What?" The basso growl wasn't reassuring.

"It's me."

" _Letty?_ " The door swung open all the way. "Come in! Bring your allies. Drelas," he called back into the room. "Get some refreshments."

Dom filed into the room and looked at their host. Jesus, this guy was bigger than Hobbs. If it came to a fight they were fucked.

Well. If it came to fistfight with Dom, they were fucked. If Gisele or Letty were players, they'd probably be fine. He walked over to Letty and put his hand on the back of her neck. She smiled up at him with a sweetness so classically, completely Letty. _Yeah. Pride._ He was one lucky bastard.

"Maramal," she said, inclining her head. "This is Dom."

"Dominic Toretto," said Dom. He reached out to shake and saw his own large hand disappear into this man's enormous mitt. Christ, was this how _he_ looked to normal people like Tej and Brian?

"If you are Letty's friend, you are a friend of mine," rumbled the giant.

Letty introduced the others, finishing, "...and this is Gisele, a great warrior of her people." Gisele quirked an eyebrow, but Letty ignored her. "We seek her man, who has been taken by the Dremora." 

"Indeed?" Maramal turned his newly piercing gaze on Gisele, who nodded grimly. "Then you have my best wishes, mighty lycanthrope warrior. It's a hard fight ahead of you."

Letty cleared her throat. "We were hoping for more like your help."

There was a clatter, and Dom looked up to see a gray-skinned, red-eyed youth in the doorway to the next room, a tray of steaming drinks in his hands. He stared at Letty as if she were a ghost. "It's the Hero of Kva--" he began, in a startled tone.

"Shut it, Drelas," snapped Letty.

"Yessir. Ma'am. Your honor!" The boy dropped the tray down on a nearby table and backed out of the room, hands over his mouth. If that bizarre mauve tint over his cheeks was any indication, he was _blushing_. Dom looked at Letty, who was engaged in a staring contest with Maramal.

"You could be kind," said the giant. "He has a case of hero worship, is all."

"I don't have the energy to deal with it," said Letty. "He can worship on his own time."

"I understand," he said, kindly. "You seek your friend." He brushed his hands off against the sooty apron he wore. "How can I assist you?"

Letty slumped back against Dom tiredly. He rested his chin against the top of her head, silently saying _you've got this, we trust you._ "We need to get our friend out of here. Not enough of us can move fast enough to escape the trapped Sigilium Sanguis at this gate. The Dremora have vehicles that let them move fast; we'll need to make some of our own."

Maramal pursed his lips. "Mehrunes Dagon himself can construct such contraptions, my dear. Perhaps, if we had the Mysterium Xarxes, we could learn the lore of it in time --"

Letty snorted. "Nah, constructing cars is kinda our thing. But we do need parts."

"Parts?"

"Do you still have that pile of Dwemer scrap metal?"


	6. Chapter 6

Maramal was happy to let them take whatever Letty said they needed from his storeroom, and would accept no discussion of payment. Dom watched the conversation closely: Maramal's sweeping hand gestures and amused chuckles; Letty's growing embarassment whenever Maramal said _for you, anything in my power_ ; the red-eyed, adoring gaze from Drelas, unsubtly peering around the door. _What did Letty do for these people?_

The storeroom was fantastic, actually. Maramal was apparently a shit-you-not blacksmith from yet another magical land Letty knew, one that was just as much magic and swords, but with a little less Sunday mass hellfire. Judging by some things Letty let slip, she thought Maramel's reasons for moving to the hell dimension were stupid, but she didn't feel like arguing about it. The scrap was from some old machines that made Tej light up when Letty described them -- "for real, genuine steampunk?" -- and had the beautifully polished, well-machined quality Dom associated with hand-built cars. 

Letty sent Gisele out on a hunting mission. "I need the components you can get from killing these creatures," she said, pointing to some illustrations in huge leatherbound book Drelas had brought over. "I'll make up a list, how many of each." Gisele nodded, focused on the illustrations, seemingly trying to memorize them. "Bring Roman for backup. These guys are hard to kill, even for you."

"Hey," asked Suki, as Gisele walked past her. "Are you from here?"

Gisele curled her lip. "I'm from Rehovot."

"...Is that here?"

Gisele said something that wasn't English. Or Italian or Spanish or Latin, which pretty much tapped Dom out for languages. It didn't sound like "yes," at any rate.

Suki didn't quit. "Then how does everyone here know you're a werewolf?"

Maramal, carrying what probably passed for a toolbox in this place, looked surprised. "Why, because we have eyes! Now hush, your friend and her Redguard colleague have a battle to meet."

Roman looked up from the corner, where he and Tej were telling Drelas who-the-fuck-knew what kind of bullshit. "Field trip!"

Gisele flashed a hint of what was clearly supposed to be a smile. The more time passed, the more whittled away she looked, as if she were interacting with people with the remains of a veneer of civilization that was being burned out from the inside.

"Dom, Suki," said Letty. Suki snapped off a sassy, sloppy salute. "I need you to to build the car bodies."

"Any parameters?" asked Suki.

"Figure it out. You've seen what the outside terrain is like; the route goes inside, too. Think steep ramps on strange surfaces, narrow bridges, that kind of thing."

Dom nodded, already thinking about the specs. "Speed the most important?"

Letty frowned. "Tight turning radius, probably. Think a Tokyo drift course, not L.A. highway."

Tej bowed like he was taking all this Renaissance faire crap seriously. "And me, milady?"

"We get the fun part," said Letty. "I'm gonna describe Dwemer engineering and what passes for physics around here. And then you and me are gonna design and build some engines."

Tej practically glowed. "A magic-steampunk-dwarf racing car."

Letty smiled tightly. "Yep. Tonight."

Tej actually rubbed his hands together; Dom didn't think he'd ever seen anyone do that before. "No wonder you're the hero of whatever," he said. "You make the _best plans_."

As Dom and Suki worked on the body of the car, Dom had to agree. If it weren't for the critical circumstances, he'd be having the time of his life. The materials they had to work with were just so strange, metals unlike any he'd ever seen before. With some of the heavier pieces, they put together a car lift, a hoist, and a couple of creepers. All the while they argued about car specifications.

"Letty said tight turning radius," insisted Dom. "That means small and light."

"Yeah," said Suki. "But if we're going to get attacked by monsters and demons -- did you see some of the pictures in that book? – we want heavy shielding. The car can't make tight turns if the driver's taken a boulder to the face."

In the end they compromised. They were going to need three cars; that went without saying. There were seven in the crew, once they got Han. Besides, driving was their strong point, and in an alien world they need to play to their strengths. So they designed one of the cars as the damage magnet, slower but with a heavier body that could hopefully take hits and protect the others. For the other two, they went for light and powerful, or as light as they could manage with this weird metal.

While Dom and Suki built frames, Letty and Tej conferred with them about engine power and size. Occasionally Gisele and Roman would return, looking filthy and stained but victorious each time, to dump a pile of minerals or animal parts near Letty. It felt amazing: the whole team working together to build something brand-new in the world. Dom found himself humming.

Roman wandered over after dropping off a basket of -- was that teeth? and a _heart_? -- with Letty. He walked around the slowly emerging skeletal cars, pursing his lips. At last he looked up at Dom, who was waiting for his assessment.

"Is this your movie montage?" Roman asked.

"Excuse me?"

"It's just that you're humming 'I'll Make a Man Out of You.' Should we be calling you Mulan?"

Dom flushed. "Hey, I started with 'Eye of the Tiger.'"

Letty flashed a grin at him from across the room, where she was investigating the basket's gory contents. "Yeah, but you usually eventually get to 'Let's Hear it for the Boy,' so your tough guy image is already shattered."

Dom stared at Letty across the room. "Did you remember that?" She hadn't seen him working on cars in his happy-karaoke mode since they got her back from Shaw.

Letty stared back, wide-eyed, and nodded. Dom flew across the room, and Letty put the dripping basket down just in time for Dom to spin her around, kissing her. "That's all I remember," she protested, between kisses. "Nothing important. Just you singing songs from 80s dance movies."

"That's something," he said, and spun her around the room as Roman sang, "... swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moooooooooon!"

Suki leaned her chin on her hands, heedless of the grease she was getting on her face. "How do you know songs from Mulan, anyway, Roman?"

Roman glared at her. "Excuse me, we have to go _kill some more monsters_."

Gisele walked over, wiping her hands on a rack. "Actually, we've got all the ingredients Letty and Tej need. Can you put us to work building the cars? I mean, if you're done mocking Roman'?"

"I will _never_ be done mocking Roman."

When Dom returned to work, Suki and Gisele were ensconced over a homemade lathe, building steering columns, and Roman was extracting gyroscopes from something Maramal called a centurion.

He had no sense of the passage of time in the windowless cavern. He knew that Drelas came by from time to time with sweet rolls, cheese wedges, and mead. He saw the cars taking shape under his hands. He heard the increasing satisfaction from Tej and Letty as the engines they were building started passing tests. And he knew when Gisele stood up, cracked her back, and said, "It's time."

Tej caressed the hood of the closest car. "This little beauty is gonna take me for a sweet, sweet, ride."

Roman swatted at his head. "Fuck the car on your own time, Parker. We've got a race. Or, like, an epic fucking quest. Whatever."

Letty nodded. "For Han."

"For Han," they chorused.

"The Hero of Kvatch, may she be ever victorious," caroled Drelas.

Letty glared.


	7. Chapter 7

They set off in the cars: Suki taking point in the speedster with Gisele armed and dangerous in shotgun; Tej following with Letty; and Dom with Roman in the heavyweight. Before they left, Letty filled the canisters in each car with something she called void salts. "Think of it like nitrous," she told them. "It's not going to be easy to get more."

"That's the stuff we got by fighting those big rocky motherfuckers?" asked Roman. "Hell, no, it's not easy to get more."

"So save it until you need it."

"Yo, Letty," said Tej. "We know how to drive."

Roman laughed. "The rest of us do. You need a Schwinn to get around."

"We ain't got time for this shit," said Dom. "Let's roll."

They headed toward the big tower. Letty said the way out was through the Sigillum Sanguis, which meant the highest part of the big tower. The first part of the trip was a lot like their journey from the gate down to the Nether Tunnels: red, hot, and full of monsters. But damn, it felt so much better to be traveling around a hell dimension in a car. 

"Ride or die," Dom muttered. 

"Or both," said Roman.

This time they didn't stop to loot the bodies of the monsters they passed. Zooming past at high speed, they avoided many of them; Roman, Letty, and Gisele easily dispatched the rest. Suki spun doughnuts around one cluster of scamps as Gisele leaned out the window, beheading each with an enormous battleaxe. It wasn't just the scamps and the clannfear anymore. The closer they got to the tower, the more monsters attacked them: grotesque giant spiders with the heads of women, Roman's big rocky motherfuckers, creatures made entirely of fire, even automated towers with some kind of automatic fire, like fixed artillery. After a long while, the hugest tower on the horizon got closer until they could see the massive gates at its base.

They had to stop at the entrance. While Tej and Suki struggled to open the huge doors, the rest of them fought off what seemed like an army of fire people. Luckily axes and swords (which did swing just like tire irons; Letty was right) seemed to work against flying women made of fire, but the burns hurt all the same. When they finally made it into the tower, Dom was panting and scalded.

After the first series of ramps they entered a huge hall. Tej's car skidded to a halt and the others followed. "Go, whoever's hurt," said Letty, pointing to a fountain filled with -- holy crap, blood. "Take a drink."

"Uh, Letty?" Suki raised her hand. "That's blood."

"Beggars can't be choosers." Letty grabbed Dom's -- ow, burnt -- bicep and dragged him out of the car and over to the fountain. "We're in Oblivion. If the worst thing you have to do is drink healing potion made of blood, consider it a victory."

She held up her cupped hands to Dom's mouth. It was viscous, smelled like pennies, and yep, tasted foul. But... "Come on, guys," he said. "It works." He watched as his burns faded, as his crew's cuts and bruises healed up before his eyes. As they drank, the fountain dried up. This was possibly the most disgusting thing Dom had ever done by choice, but he couldn't argue with the results.

The floor of the enormous room shuddered and creaked.

"Fuck," said Letty. "It's gonna start moving. Drive!" As the slipped back into the cars, the floor of the room started sliding. It was as if the room were a huge moving catwalk. The effect was nauseating: the steam-and-magic powered cars heaved over the uneven floor, while the sickly pulsing walls slid back faster than they should have. Dom focused on speed, on following Tej in his heavyweight. He skidded through doors, manuvering Roman into position to take out as many of the vicious motherfuckers as got in their way.

The place was a maze. They'd go out one door and cross a bridge into a second tower, only to go up a couple of levels and cross back to the first. After the third bridge, Suki's car spun out into a showy stop right inside the doors. Within seconds, Gisele was out of the car, running over to the cage that hung in the middle of the tower, surrounded by the backwards-rotating spiral ramp.

"Han!"

Jesus, that was Han hanging there, the poor asshole, battered and bloody. He wore only a pair of pants, and knelt in the cage with his hands tied behind his back. And he stared at Gisele like she was a Lexus LFA in a world filled with Honda Civics.

"I got this," said Tej.

"Tej ..." Letty began.

"I _got this_. Go, watch for monsters or whatever." He settled down at the door of the cage, shifting Gisele to the side, and went at the lock. Dom tried to focus on watching the door, making sure nothing got in, but he was distracted by Han's pale, pale face, by Gisele's suddenly furred and clawed grip on the bars. Tej paused, staring at her nervously, but she hissed at him, "Do it, you'll be faster, yalla, yalla." Tej's muttered as he twisted a dagger blade in the lock. With a _snikt_ the lock finally burst open and Gisele ripped the door off its hinges, grabbed Han and pulled him out. He leaned numb and still in her embrace, while Tej sliced open the ropes around his wrists.

Gisele took Han's face in both of her hands and stared into his eyes. "Never again," she said. "You're never leaving me like that again."

Han finally spoke. "You left me first."

"Shut up," she said, and kissed him.


	8. Chapter 8

The kiss went on for long enough that Roman whistled -- but Letty was looking nervously at the doors. Dom walked over and threw his arms around both Gisele and Han.

That broke the spell. Everyone circled around tight, squeezing into a Toretto-family hug.

"We got you back," said Dom.

"And now we have to _move_ ," said Letty.

When Suki went to slide into the driver's seat, Han stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "Let me," he said. "I need to drive."

Suki looked over at the tiny cage where Han had been held, and nodded. She slid into the backseat they'd put together for him, and Gisele smoothly took shotgun once more.

Gisele leaned over and kissed Han. "Get us out of here," she said.

The doors one level below burst open and three of the most demonic vehicles Dom had ever seen shot through the doors and started speeding up the ramp, easily accelerating on the moving path. They were red and smoking -- and so were the drivers, who must be the Dremora Letty had talked about. Terrifying creatures straight out of Father Ignetti's most twisted sermon on hell and punishment shot up the ramp at 100 mph. 

"Go, go, go!" yelled Dom. Han's car shot forward, then Tej's. Dom put his foot on the gas pedal (well, the fuel pedal; he was trying not to think about the fuel tank stuffed with claws and teeth) and pulled his bruiser of a car after theirs as fast as he could. Roman leaned out the window, tossing jars of poison at their pursuers. Most missed, but a few left smoke or flames or grease on the ramp, slowing them briefly.

The monsters came thick and fast: gray-skinned devils wielding gruesome swords and surrounded by clannfear; huge fire-breathing bipedal gators; lumbering robotic ice creatures whose touch burned like frostbite. Dom was so overwhelmed with horror he'd gone into a kind of terror trance and come out the other side, able to focus on the driving as if he were racing Brian on the mountain roads in Tenerife.

And now they were in what was so clearly Letty's final tower, the sigil tower. Their cars shot up moving ramps made of bone, like the spinal column of some great creature. Two of the pursuers' cars followed them, but the third spun off to a parallel ramp spiraling up counterclockwise. Though Gisele shot barbed arrows from Han's car to the solo Dremora vehicle, minimal interference meant it could accelerate. It was moving faster, ready to cut them off in the passageway to the next level. Meanwhile, the ramps spun faster and faster; staying even with the backward slide of the path took everything this car had.

Han was speeding his light racer up the ramps, pulling ahead of the rest of them. The solo Dremora car reached the narrow window almost as Han did, but he must have hit his void salts canister: the car shot away, blurring as it zoomed through the passage. The Dremora car spun out as it tried to follow the tight curve. Tej and Dom moved seamlessly together, forming a figure eight as they arced around either side of the struggling-for-control demons, then hitting their own void salts as they shot passed it.

They sped so fast up the spiral ramp made of some kind of skin -- Dom and Tej passing Han as his void salts ran empty -- that they barely caught the shockwave when two of their pursuers collided and exploded at the room's entrance. Only one car remained to chase them, shooting fireballs and glass arrows as it accelerated. But they were halfway up, two thirds, three quarters, and then Letty leapt out of Tej's car and lunged for the glowing sphere that floated above the platform. Dom brought his car to a screeching halt just a few inches in front of their pursuers, and leapt out to defend his crew -- ineptly, perhaps, but loyally as possible -- with a broadsword and shield. Han was still not all the way up, and more Dremora were pouring from side passages, blocking his way.

Dom and Roman prepared to punch up everything between Han and the rest of them, no matter how many of the monsters there were. As the Dremora closed in, aiming magical attacks at the car, Han turned his car, yanked on the brake -- and drifted, beautifully, right through the pack of them. The largest, scariest Dremora of the pack of them lunged after him, only to be cut off -- and cut down -- by Gisele, who lept in front of Han, face stretching and distorting into that of a fanged and snarling beast. She clamped her teeth on the Dremora's throat, reached one clawed hand into its chest, and _pulled its heart right out_.

A white light spread from Letty, encompassing Tej, then Han, Suki, and Gisele, pouring from the car. Roman and Dom grinned at each other as the light swept down on them as well.

They were laughing and crying in each other's arms on a Tokyo street, surrounded by the burning wreckage of a race. Gisele and Han knelt facing each other, both human-looking, gore-drenched foreheads touching. The rest of them stood around in a circle, holding each other.

"On second thought," said Han. "Let's not go to Tokyo."

"How about L.A.?" asked Dom.

Gisele looked into Han's eyes and smiled slowly. "Yeah. L.A. works."

Han's lips quirked, as if he were trying to keep the smile hidden and failing. "Call Brian and Mia. Tell them Uncle Han's coming home."

**Author's Note:**

> This story includes the characters watching the apparent (but mistaken) fiery death of a friend in a canon car accident. I promise everyone lives happily ever after, though, especially Brain and Mia, who spend the rest of their long lives driving fast cars with Jack, and never in any danger at all.
> 
> Midnightjuly, I loved loved loved this prompt when I saw it, because of the opportunity it gave me to combined my most cracked-out impulses and fusions of two worlds I love in the spirit of character death fix-it. If I hadn't loved the prompt so much , I'd have put the story down like a hot potato when Paul Walker died. But I will _completely understand_ if this story falls firmly into Too Soon for you. If you'd rather not read right now in light of everything, don't feel obliged by the rules of Yuletide. 
> 
> In Paul Walker's memory, I've made a donation to Taiphoon Haiyan relief.


End file.
